Blog 5
It was enough to gladden the heart of even the most disillusioned Luddite. Here on the pages of the Hull Daily Mail was proof that the tide was turning. Old fashioned pigeon post outperformed the internet. Over a 100km distance, as the pigeon flies, a video file was delivered via an attached memory card in 75 minutes. In the time the pigeon took, the computer had only uploaded 30% of the same file via the internet. Now obviously this couldn’t happen in the USA but in rural East Yorkshire/Lincolnshire it is a fact – official. Now I wonder what we could do over on the West Coast?
Huge East Coast File Transfer Capacity (by m_bartosch)
This reminded me of an episode the other week when I was doing some casual work for one of the local Tourist Boards. I was on the information counter in a Visit Centre when in strode a confident looking bespectacled youth carrying what I supposed was a mobile phone. Geek never crossed my mind, honest, even though he was also wearing an anorak – true. “Can you direct me to Garstang?” he asked in a rather clipped accent. Before I could ponder his origin he followed up with “I am from Liechtenstein”, which explained it all. So I started to get out the regional road atlas upon which he interjected with “postcode only, please” and waved his mobile phoney thing in the air. “We have GPS!” pointing to two people carriers parked outside containing about 10% of the population of Liechtenstein. I gave him the postcode and away he went head down typing furiously into his Sat Nav/Phone thingy. Bet they followed the graphics from Liechtenstein to Fleetwood without once admiring the view.
Child In Liechtenstein Planning Future Trip (by Tina Phillips)
A couple of hours later, I kid you not, a woman came in asking the directions to a local side street in a French accent. Much easier to recognise than abrupt Mid-European English. Again I got out a local map but this time she interrupted with “Just show me where it is. Not the route!” I pointed at where we were on the map and then her destination. “I will now remember the route” she stated as she traced her finger along the map. It took her a few seconds. She thanked me and walked off smiling and looking around.
French Child Planning Round The World Trip (Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
Where does all this get us? ZZ is clever and has a good memory (2GB) rated at 4.5 on Windows Experience Index (WEI); but wait his graphical performance is rated at 4.7 (WEI)! ZZ is gutted. He wanted to be more Gallic and carefree than Very Small Nation boring. I haven’t told him yet but I will buy him some extra RAM for his birthday so he can admire the view.
As for the West Coast video file transfer we have enlisted the use of gulls but to get them to accept the SD cards we have to put them into shells (see below). At least this should make the regurgitated delivery more palatable, if they ever arrive.
Video Transfer On The Fylde Coast. (by Liz Noffsinger)
Au revoir to those of you who admire the view or if you don’t auf Wiederschauen.